Sir Michael Hordern

Sir Michael Hordern0:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty seven, and the presenter was Michael Parkinson.

Presenter0:29

Our castaway described himself in the Who's Who of the Theatre as being formally in business. We shall discover what that means in a moment. What we do know about him is that for fifty years he's played everything from comedy to tragedy with a rare distinction. He's one of our greatest actors, but more than that, in my view at least, he's a national institution. He is Sir Michael Hordon.

Presenter0:49

Do you like the thought of being a nationalist in the world? Like an ancient monument to me and Cleopatra's needle. I think you are, actually. This formally in business uh quote in the uh Who's Who the Theatre, what what exactly does that mean, formally in business? Well, I was in a firm in London called the Educational Supply Association for some, I think, uh four or five years.

Sir Michael Hordern0:51

National history.

Sir Michael Hordern0:55

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Sir Michael Hordern1:00

Yeah.

Presenter1:11

Immediately before I crept in through stage door.

Presenter1:15

And that's fifty years ago because you're about to celebrate your fiftieth year, so you obviously made the right choice, and you've rarely been out of work for those fifty years. And it's got you to this desert island. Are you looking forward to it?

Sir Michael Hordern1:18

Yeah.

Sir Michael Hordern1:25

Hmm.

Presenter1:26

Um I'm I'm not really, I don't think, looking forward to it, but I wouldn't be too bad on it because I'm not a townsman, you know, and I think I could find my way about a bit. And and what about music? I mean, would music be a great comfort and solace to you on this island? Yes. You've always enjoyed music. I've always enjoyed music enormously and very much regretted that I never learnt it.

Sir Michael Hordern1:41

Yeah.

Presenter1:49

that I never played an instrument.

Presenter1:51

Let's have an indication of the kind of music you like. What would be the first choice of record? Well, my first choice is a record that I met immediately after the war, but right at the beginning of my theatrical career when I played in the Fairy Queen at Covent Garden, and I met Constant Lambert, who was uh conducting, and I would like to hear some of his Rio Grande.

Speaker 42:20

Your grandma's

Speaker 42:53

Building day away from the trees and shake

Sir Michael Hordern2:56

Uh

Presenter3:15

Part of Constant Lambert's The Rio Grande performance conducted by Andrei Previn.

Presenter3:20

Sir Michael, what what kind of a background did you come from? Was there any sort of theatre in the family at all? No, no, no theatre in the family at all. There's been a lot of the church in my family, not my immediate family. My father, in fact, was in the Indian Navy, but uh I have an uncle or two and cousins who were in the church, and uh looking through the family history goes back through several generations. Was there any likelihood that you might have followed in their footsteps? No, I don't think ever.

Presenter3:45

No. Only insofar as the church and the stage are akin, as we all know. Yes, uh, acting, I suppose, from the pulpit as well as the stage, yes, there is a kind of affinity there. So what what was the the childhood ambition then? I never really had any ambition.

Sir Michael Hordern3:52

Yes.

Presenter4:00

I've always enjoyed acting.

Presenter4:04

Ever since I was a child.

Presenter4:07

And when I was formerly in business, as you just said, I used to do a lot of amateur acting. But it was never my ambition to become an actor professionally. I never thought about it. Well, then what you w were you heading for? I mean I was heading for staying in this firm and selling exercise books, I suppose, for the rest of my mortal life.

Sir Michael Hordern4:19

I mean, I was

Presenter4:26

But I realized that I was giving an awful lot of time to my acting and had to make up my mind sooner or later, and the sooner the better, which I was going to do. Now, this time, though, when you were in business and selling these books, what kind of acting were you engaged in? Was it an amateur dramatic society? Yes, it was a dramatic society, or one of the things I did, the main thing I did.

Sir Michael Hordern4:41

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter4:46

called the St Pancras People's Theatre, which sounds, you know, like that rather. But it was a wonderful uh outfit in a disused Wesleyan chapel in St Pancras.

Presenter4:57

was bombed in the war, run by a splendid sort of amateur Lillian Bayliss called Edith Neville.

Presenter5:04

And uh she ruled us all with a rod of iron. It was a sort of amateur weekly repertory. And what sort of parts were you playing in those days? Oh, all sorts. Uh one of the ugly sisters in Pantomime. Oh, I was playing sort of leading young men, you see, in those days. What was the lure of acting to you? Because, I mean, you're not a sort of you don't have a sort of flippity gibbet mind, I mean you're not taken in by thoughts of glamour and things like that. No, no. But what was it about acting? I don't know. I suppose it's it's dressing up. Ever since one was a child, I'm still doing it. I think that's what it is, really.

Sir Michael Hordern5:26

No, no.

Presenter5:35

I'm being paid for it as well. I'm being paid for it as well. Second choice of records for Michael.

Sir Michael Hordern5:36

And

Presenter5:40

The second choice is uh uh I must have some Beethoven ready to think about things. This will be the Ninth Symphony and I'd like to hear some of the slow movement.

Presenter6:53

That was part of the slow movement from Beethoven's ninth symphony, the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stockowski.

Presenter6:59

Sir Michael, how do you make the break then from St. Pancras People's Theatre into the professional stage? What happened? Well, I I went to the managing director of the firm that I was working with and I said, I don't think I'm giving you the best of my time and trouble and work.

Presenter7:14

Because I'm doing too much of this acting lark.

Presenter7:16

And he said, Have you got a job to go to? And I said, No, I haven't, but um

Presenter7:20

I thought I ought to tell you and he said,'Well, you can stay with us until you get a job in the theatre, and you can leave us at short notice'. And that's exactly what happened. I got a job as T boy and understudy and heaven knows what, to play at the Savoy Theatre.

Presenter7:35

And I left the Educational Supply Association on Saturday and I was there at the first rehearsal on Monday morning. It was actually a very p courageous move when you think back on it. Well, it would have been courageous if I'd had any responsibilities, you know, but I hadn't. I was all on my own. I had no wives or children or

Presenter7:53

But that was fifty years ago and the rest of that is is history, some which we'll talk about in a moment. And in fact, the extraordinary thing about that fifty years is that I mean you've literally not stopped working that fifty years. Apart from one five-year gap when you you went in the navy during the war, you were rudely interrupted by World War Two. Yes. In fact, you saw active service, didn't you? I did indeed, yes. I was at sea for most of the war, really. And when you came out of the uh services at the end of the war d

Sir Michael Hordern7:56

I was good.

Sir Michael Hordern8:09

Yes.

Presenter8:18

Do you have difficulty readjusting? No. You didn't. I didn't. I was frightened to start with.

Sir Michael Hordern8:20

No.

Presenter8:24

But I was very lucky because during the two years before the war I'd been in weekly rep at Bristol, for which I I have have a tremendous

Presenter8:34

regard and uh gratitude.

Presenter8:37

And during that time they used to use us at the B B C in Bristol, West Region as it was called then and so we did quite a bit of broadcasting there. So I was all ready for that when the war ended, and my last year

Presenter8:52

In the navy I was in the Admiralty.

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sitting behind a desk.

Presenter8:56

and I used to come up here the broadcasting house every now and then on my evenings off, so to speak, and do little jobs, so that when I finally got my burla hat,

Presenter9:05

I was able to slip into radio, and I did a great deal of sound radio in the next two years. Another choice of records for Michael, please. Well, I should like to hear Rural Britannia. When I was in Illustrious we were refitting in Durban.

Presenter9:21

And uh there was a wonderful woman who used to sing.

Presenter9:24

off the end of the jetty, the breakwater, to the ships as they went out to sea, and she stood there in this white flowing garment singing Rule Britannia and the illustrious with all the crew, you know, dressed over well, not dressed over all, but all the crew on deck and everything.

Presenter9:40

ploughing out to sea past this. It it was a wonderful moment.

Speaker 410:03

This was the charge.

Presenter10:47

Thomas Arm's Rubatania, sung by Anne Collins, with the Royal Liverpool Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles Groves.

Presenter10:54

So Michael, you mentioned the point of arrival at the BBC shortly after the war, and this was really one of the golden episodes in the BBC's life, wasn't it, the radio? Because you had an extraordinary accumulation of talent here in the Broadcasting House. Just tell me some of the people that you were working with.

Sir Michael Hordern11:06

Yeah.

Sir Michael Hordern11:09

Rahman.

Presenter11:11

Lawrence Gilliam, who uh was head of features, collected round him. Wonderful people. Louis McNeese, I I remember as as well as any of the people. Dylan Thomas.

Presenter11:23

What were you doing yourself mainly in those days? Were you working for the poetry department or what? No. Uh I was just uh doing anything that came, absolutely. Plays, f uh a lot of of of features. And what about at the same time the stage? At this point was there a turning point in your career? Well, not for two or three years.

Sir Michael Hordern11:39

Wet

Presenter11:41

But then I had a wonderful break.

Presenter11:44

I was asked.

Presenter11:45

Heaven knows why.

Presenter11:47

to play Ivanov in Chekhov's play of that name, which is the first time it had been done in this country for twenty one years, or twenty five years or something, at the Arts.

Sir Michael Hordern11:56

Uh

Presenter11:57

Theatre.

Presenter11:59

And uh I played it.

Presenter12:01

With, I have to say, some success, and it was seen by quite a lot of people.

Presenter12:08

amongst them Glen Bymeshaw.

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who was about to become co-director at the Stratford, Stratford on the Shakespeare Company.

Presenter12:19

And uh out of the blue he took an enormous risk and cast me gave me four absolutely wonderful parts to play.

Presenter12:29

And I thought, well, your blood be on your own head, I'll have a go. And I really knew nothing about Shakespeare. And I had a wonderful season, actually, at Stratford. That again was fairly successful. And I think that was one of the big turning points.

Sir Michael Hordern12:31

Your own head?

Presenter12:45

Was it about this time that you played Macbeth for the first time? No, I played Macbeth some years later. I tried to. What do you remember of that? Because that was quite that was quite controversial. It was, as you might say, controversial.

Sir Michael Hordern12:51

What do you remember of that? Because that was quite

Sir Michael Hordern12:54

I don't know if

Presenter12:59

I did get some rather bad notices. I got some rather good notices, too. But I cherish the the worst notice, I think, that I've ever had. mister Michael Horden reminded us of nothing so much as an Armenian carpet seller.

Presenter13:13

who wouldn't have been allowed in through the back port cullis of Duncinane.

Presenter13:18

And to read that the next morning after you've given your all for back death. But I mean shattering. Yes, absolutely. I should imagine so. So you're not you're not of the persuasion, as some actors are, that they never read the notices. No, absolutely not. I think it's very presumptuous of my fellow

Sir Michael Hordern13:22

Uh

Presenter13:33

artistes to say that they never read notices. Well, A, I don't believe them. And B, I think it's very presumptuous of them to to say that because a great many critics know a great deal about the theatre.

Presenter13:49

and you can learn a great deal.

Presenter13:52

I mean, you can sift out the purely personal insults like the Armenian carpet seller, but uh you can learn a tremendous amount. And yeah, I would never say that I had altered a performance because of notices, but I've certainly adjusted performances. Really? Oh, yes, indeed. I've said my God, I've said, Yes, he's got something there.

Sir Michael Hordern14:08

Really?

Presenter14:13

I'll try. Another choice of record, please, Mike. Well, this comes from that same time after the war. Another person that one used to meet uh having a lunchtime drink in the George was Constant Lambert.

Presenter14:25

And uh

Presenter14:26

He

Presenter14:28

Conducted a performance of Purcell's Fairy Queen at Covent Garden.

Presenter14:33

in which I played bottom.

Presenter14:35

And he even wrote me a tiny little song to sing, because I personally didn't do that. So I danced and sang at Covent Garden in The Fairy Queen. So I should like to hear that, and which I think is the closing moments of of The Fairy Queen.

Presenter15:41

You obviously enjoyed that, Sir Michael. There's a look of virtue. I loved it.

Sir Michael Hordern15:43

I loved it.

Presenter15:45

It was well known in my family. I sang it in my bath day after day after day, and my daughter, who was a very small child then, learnt it. She used to sing it too. Well, that performance was in fact by the Ambrosian singers in the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Britton.

Presenter16:01

Let's now talk about another significant period in your life, the period when you joined the old Vic. Yes. We're now talking about, when would that be, in the 50s? Oh, heavens. Yes, I believe that. You have difficulty remembering doing it. I can never remember that. It was. But it was also a time when you met for the first time a young actor called Richard Burton. Yes, indeed. And of course, in those days, the extraordinary thing about, because I remember it too, being a fan myself.

Sir Michael Hordern16:11

You have difficulty remembering that.

Sir Michael Hordern16:20

Yes, in

Presenter16:27

Was that I mean Burton was like a rock star, wasn't he? Absolutely. Absolutely. Did you envy that kind of thing? Yes, I I did envy him a bit and there was a sort of love-hate relationship because

Sir Michael Hordern16:29

Absolutely.

Sir Michael Hordern16:31

Absolutely.

Presenter16:39

I thought during that season that I did all the hard work and he got all the kudos. And I used to come out of the Olvik after having sweated my guts out playing King John or I played some very big parts. And the crowd would be right across the Waterloo Road, which was slightly narrower in those days, but it was a big wide road right across to the pub the other side.

Presenter17:04

And I would shoulder my way through this crowd, absolutely unnoticed, for all the work I'd done in the last three hours, and then Richard would come out, you see, and bang Yes. What was his appeal, do you think, Sir Michael?

Presenter17:19

Well, it's basically I suppose it's sex appeal.

Presenter17:24

And a wonderful presence, a wonderful presence. I mean, he walked onto a stage.

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And you just

Presenter17:31

New you had to look and listen.

Presenter17:33

So Michael, another choice of record, please. Yes, well, I'd like to hear Burton's wonderful voice.

Presenter17:40

What better than a piece of soliloquy from Hamlet, in which, in incidentally not in the production you're going to listen to now, but in which I played Polonius at the Olvick when he played Hamlet.

Speaker 417:51

Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew

Speaker 418:00

or that the everlasting had not fixed his cannon against self slaughter.

Speaker 418:04

Oh God.

Speaker 418:06

God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world. Fire Pont, oh, fie! Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely. That it should come to this, but two months dead. Nay, not so much, not two. So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr. So loving to my mother that he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth must I remember, why she would hang on him as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on, and yet within a month...

Speaker 418:45

Let me not think hunt.

Speaker 418:47

Frailty

Speaker 418:49

Thy name is woman.

Presenter18:52

He was nodding in approval somewhere, yes, yes, there's a lesson in speaking. It's a wonderful voice, and Richard Burton is extraordinary. Talking about careers, I mean, you've done everything in your career. It seems to me that you you really have covered the waterfront of your particular of your particular career. Has there been a deliberate policy on your part? Absolutely not. I've never had any policy, I've never had any ambition. Really? Not at all. Just take what comes and

Speaker 418:54

Yes, yes.

Speaker 418:58

One of the riskier.

Sir Michael Hordern18:59

Uh

Sir Michael Hordern19:05

Oh, fine.

Sir Michael Hordern19:10

Absolutely.

Sir Michael Hordern19:14

Then I just

Presenter19:17

Turn it down if I didn't like it, but just hoping that the next uh job will be as interesting as the one that I'm doing.

Presenter19:24

See, I I read somewhere, Sir Sir Michael, I think, that you turned down the part of Doctor Who, didn't you? Yes, I did. When uh William Hartnell, who originally played Doctor Who, left the series, or died, I think, I was asked to take the part on, and I refused.

Presenter19:41

Why was that? Well, because I didn't want to be typed. I've never wanted to be typed. And I think in a series like that, once you become so identified with a character, your own character goes and people can't believe that you can play other other other parts.

Presenter19:56

And the same happened with Maigray, where I can't say that I was offered the part of Maigray, but I was certainly asked to do the pilot for the series and didn't.

Presenter20:07

And uh Rupert Davis played it and it played killed him.

Presenter20:11

Just about literally. Yes. So of all the range of of your craft that you've you've done, which has been your favorite? I mean, which do you enjoy doing most of all? Oh, the theatre. Do you? Oh, yes, the theatre. First love's last love. I don't uh enjoy the thought of uh long runs in the West End. Why? Uh w well, uh doing the same thing eight times a week is uh doesn't appeal to me very much. And as I get older I would be terrified of uh getting stuck.

Presenter20:38

Yeah.

Presenter20:40

I've enjoyed very much playing with the big companies, just one nice play like the Rivals or Tom Stoppard's Jumpers or something like that. But

Sir Michael Hordern20:48

Uh

Presenter20:49

That's not every night, you see. What about the kind of plays then? What would you be the theatre then is your first love, all right? The perfect world, you've got one more performance to do. Which play would you pick to do it? It's a dreadful question, isn't it? It's a dreadful question. Well, one of them I'd like uh I'd like uh comedy, you see. I do enormously enjoy playing comedy. To hear a a a whole theater full of people

Sir Michael Hordern20:59

For which m

Sir Michael Hordern21:01

Uh

Sir Michael Hordern21:05

The

Presenter21:14

Laughing, getting laughs out of them is is a marvellous shared experience. So a comedy, well, let's say um and it's not entirely a comedy because it's very entertaining. Yeah, it's very entertaining, but it's serious content would be Tom Stoppard's Jumpers, which I played at the National for some two hundred and fifty performances overall. As to a serious

Presenter21:39

Evening, I would wouldn't mind having another crack at Lear. You pick some difficult parts, don't you? I mean, you're on stage for everything but about thirty minutes in Lear, and for the entire performance in John King. Just about the entire performance, yes. Lear is, of course, the ultimate test, isn't it, I suppose for? Well, it's the ultimate attempt, yes, the everest, as they say. Very few people climb it. When you do a performance like Lear, how much does it t take you over? I mean, how obsessive do you become with the character? With the character. Well, personally, I don't. I think there's a great danger in becoming obsessed with a character outside the hours in which you're working on it. It it really would take you over. I mean, it's been dreadful to think that you're going to.

Presenter22:24

Really uh carry your dead daughter in your arms eight times a week. I d I simply wondered, I mean, do you become a different person to your family in the sense that you you brood more, you you worry? Some plays have a very downing effect on you, you know, can really get you down. Just going into the theater and playing whatever it is.

Sir Michael Hordern22:25

Real

Sir Michael Hordern22:32

I

Sir Michael Hordern22:36

That

Sir Michael Hordern22:39

Yeah.

Presenter22:52

Every night.

Presenter22:53

can make you very low. And and or the opposite, when you come into the theatre and you know you're going to have a marvellous evening, you know, and you know that everyone's there and and longing to to see this particular play and they're all going to have a wonderful time and laugh. And that keeps you cheerful all day.

Presenter23:10

Another choice of record, please. Well, there will be times, I'm sure, when one wants to become a bit contemplative.

Sir Michael Hordern23:12

Well

Presenter23:17

and uh if not in a sort of vague way devotional.

Presenter23:21

And I would like to hear some of Monteverdi's

Presenter23:24

sixteen ten Vespers

Speaker 423:28

Good uh

Speaker 423:34

Said foremost foremost of the rules of

Speaker 423:55

Did lex et rods it may be cursor.

Speaker 424:13

And a pixie

Presenter24:21

That was Negro Somme from Monte Verde's sixteen ten Vespers, the voice of Nigel Rogers.

Presenter24:27

So Michael, you've been an actor now for for fifty years. I d I d it sounds a silly question, I know, but I'd like to get your reaction. What is an actor?

Presenter24:37

He's a child, I think, uh who still enjoys dressing up.

Presenter24:42

Like we all did as children, we've just gone on doing it.

Presenter24:45

And I think as you get older

Presenter24:48

You realize your own shortcomings, your own lack of personality, if you like, your own lack of uh making i an impression.

Presenter24:57

And so you do it through other people. You do do it through King Lear.

Presenter25:03

Yes. What do you do you mean you explain your deficiencies or you cover your deficiencies? What do you mean both?

Presenter25:08

Yes, you cover your deficiencies.

Presenter25:11

Oh fantasy.

Presenter25:13

Impossible to explain. One has so little

Sir Michael Hordern25:14

Within

Presenter25:16

Brain, that's another thing, oneself. I've got nothing up there at all. So I fill it with uh other people's brains. I fill it with Shakespeare's brains, or Sheridan's brains, or again Tom Stoppard's brains. And uh

Presenter25:33

I think that's probably what keeps me ticking.

Presenter25:38

And d as you get older, does your acting change? Does it refine? Do you become a better actor, do you think? Oh, yes, I think so. With experience. And another thing that you

Presenter25:48

Hopefully, achieve if you have been fairly successful, is confidence. And if you've got confidence and you just know.

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As it were instinctively, that when you walk onto that stage.

Presenter26:01

They're going to look at you and listen to you and enjoy you.

Presenter26:06

That comes with age and experience. The extraordinary thing about you too, you see, is that is that here you are, I mean, a a great actor, acknowledged as such. You never had an acting lesson in your life, have you? No, never. Why?

Sir Michael Hordern26:18

Never

Presenter26:20

Well, one didn't sort of have to have them, you see, when fifty years ago you could creep in through a stage door and and get a job, as I did, as a the T boy and understudy and fifth assistant director and all all, you know. But I don't think that

Presenter26:35

I would have benefited.

Presenter26:38

From

Presenter26:39

Professional training.

Presenter26:41

I don't think so. I think it's meant splendid for some people.

Presenter26:43

But I think I would have got long hair than Tarsen and uh you know, I'd I'd have got the wrong end of the stick. Yes. Whereas a good dose of two years of of weekly rep really drove it into me. So southern Memphis very great pleasure it was to

Presenter26:59

Another choice of record, please. Fairly recently two

Presenter27:03

Entertaining chaps called Roger Hand and

Presenter27:06

Rob Edwards.

Presenter27:08

Set to music William Plumer's poems of The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast, which is a wonderful book and wonderful poems. And

Presenter27:20

I won't inflict you with my voice, but Judy Dench and I appeared in this record, and I would like Judy Dench speaking the poem about

Presenter27:31

Miss Money Spider.

Speaker 227:33

I still have to make up my eyes.

Speaker 227:36

I'm like you.

Speaker 227:38

I've got eight.

Speaker 227:40

Alice, what is the time? How it flies!

Speaker 227:45

So do I.

Speaker 227:47

Through the air on a gossamer thread

Speaker 227:50

I shall glide to the ball.

Speaker 227:53

As I float overhead, all will look up and the dancers will pause to give me a deafening round of applause.

Presenter28:03

That was Miss Manny Spider from Butterfly Ball featuring Judy Dench.

Presenter28:10

Reading about you, Sir Michael, it's it's quite obvious that the twin passions in your life are are theatre and fishing. I'm not quite sure which you don't if giving the choice of doing one or not the other out of the

Presenter28:22

What is the fascination of fishing?

Presenter28:25

I can't tell you that either. It is basically, of course, the the hunting instinct.

Presenter28:31

Uh you want to go out and uh

Presenter28:33

And bring back something to the cave. Say to your wife, Aren't I clever? Here's a brace of trout for supper.

Presenter28:40

And you've also invented a fly, haven't you, yes? Yes, I I did invent a fly some years ago.

Sir Michael Hordern28:41

Yeah

Presenter28:46

And Hardy's the great tackle firm.

Presenter28:50

asked if I could market it. I said yes, I was very proud I'd rather have that than a knighthood. That was some time before I got one. What was it called, the flower? It was called Hordon's Pheasant Tail Nymph.

Sir Michael Hordern28:57

What was it called?

Presenter29:02

Oh, wonderful. Was it any good? Was it a good idea? Oh, rather. That's why Hardy's they got hold of it and then one of the Hardy brothers.

Sir Michael Hordern29:04

That's why

Presenter29:08

had a marvellous day's fishing with it, and that's why he asked if I if they could put it in their catalogue. And this is the place where you go and you relax and and you forget about the Michael Horden actor. Absolutely. Relax isn't quite the word in the sort of fishing that I do. In fact, most really keen fishermen don't.

Sir Michael Hordern29:16

Yeah.

Sir Michael Hordern29:17

An absolute

Presenter29:25

Relax terribly there.

Presenter29:28

Complete change of everything. Yes. But it's it's tense. I'm absolutely whacked after a day's fishing.

Presenter29:36

So Michael, also, sadly, uh earlier on this year, your your wife, who you you've known for for fifty years, you met her in Repa, I believe, uh, fifty years ago, died. I I just wondered how much solace and comfort there was to be gained for you in that obviously an awful time through your work, because I mean, you never stop working.

Sir Michael Hordern29:43

Yes.

Presenter29:53

Yes, indeed. Uh obviously, if if all I could do was to sit there and twiddle my thumbs, I'd have gone mad, to start with, at least. And and still, I mean, it comes back.

Presenter30:05

So it is wonderful to have have this work and and

Presenter30:09

Terribly lucky, you see, to be my age and still be in demand and work. I mean, if I was just a a businessman who'd retired and and lost my wife, I don't know what I would have done. Yes. Yes, y d are you I mean, how are you imagining to cope with the loneliness itself? I mean, is it is it difficult? Yes, it is. I I sometimes feel terribly lonely.

Presenter30:30

And uh I'm finding it a bit difficult to to run the home.

Presenter30:35

I d realise now how hard wives work. I'm uh my cooking is improving and um the ironing, but I can't do the sleeves of the shirts. I find them very difficult.

Presenter30:47

And what about then the the the future? I mean, are you going to cont just continue working?

Presenter30:52

Oh, yes.

Presenter30:53

Oh, I hope so, if they'll love me. We all hope so, too. Final choice of record, please, Sir Michael.

Sir Michael Hordern30:54

If they love me.

Presenter30:59

Don Giovanni, Mozart, I must have I was going to say lots of Mozart, but you can't afford to let me have more than one two. L'Ace darem la mano.

Presenter31:08

which I find very moving. It always makes me cry.

Speaker 431:18

Ulighty See on earth.

Speaker 432:00

Yeah.

Speaker 432:02

For if I drive as it do.

Presenter32:10

Now, sir, Michael, you're on your desert island now. You have to make the choice of one record from the eight. Imagine that seven have been washed away, one left. It would have to be uh the ninth symphony, the choral symphony. And what about the the book? Assume that you have the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible already. What would it be?

Presenter32:29

It would be A History of the English Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill. I was abominably taught when I was at school, abominably taught history, and I have regretted it for the last sixty years.

Presenter32:41

And this'll be a chance to catch up.

Presenter32:44

and learn something of the history of my country. And what about the luxury object inanimate?

Presenter32:50

Well, is an elm tree inanimate? For your purposes, sir, yes. Yes, but I'd like an elm tree.

Sir Michael Hordern32:53

So yes, I think so.

Presenter32:56

Because it'll remind me of England when it was a green and pleasant land, and we had elm trees before the disease took it. And with any luck out there on the desert island, those horrible little beetles won't be able to get it.

Presenter33:08

and it will provide a lovely shade, and migrating birds will come and sit in it and sing to me.

Presenter33:16

I think I'd be very happy to sit under that elm tree.

Presenter33:19

Sir Michael Horden, thank you very much indeed.

Sir Michael Hordern33:29

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.